Support and Chat thread for moms of early waking toddlers

[MDHmommy]

It's a pretty common issue it seems with LOs as they start to approach 2...and with the upcoming daylight savings switch, seems that this topic is more urgent than ever!

I thought I'd start this as a place where we can share our issues and try to troubleshoot a bit together!

Our normal routine is:

Wake 6:30
Nap 12:30-2:30
Asleep by 7:30

But lately, DS has been waking at 5:15 or earlier and is very difficult if not impossible to get back to sleep.

I've tried earlier bed time for OT - but it tends to backfire as he's just not tired, and ends up crying/fighting and then going to sleep even later, waking up multiple times during the night and then even earlier!!

I've tried lying on the floor in his room saying ssshhh it's still night time (it is!!) but he will either tantrum for me to take him out, or just toss and turn for an hour, with a bit of fussing in between - just enough to keep me from going back to sleep 

I've tried brining him to our bed, but even that doesn't really work because he'll usually just toss around - he might fall asleep every 4th time.

I have not tried W2S - but am thinking of trying it tonight.

Let's share our stories and successes - there's got to be strength in numbers!

Kate

[MDHmommy]

REALLY? Everything I've read is 11.5 hr night and 1.5 hour nap at age 2? That's 13...Although, I guess that might be too much for him knowing his history.

The thing about it is that he's not waking happy. He's miserable, whining and crying.

I'll try your suggestion over the weekend since I have very little control over nap time during week with daycare .... the other thing I was thinking of trying was to use the alarm clock in his room to try to teach him to stay in bed. His alarm clock is the kind that slowly turns on a light rather than making a noise.

I thought I would set it to start to turn on at 6:15. This way - when he wakes at 5:30 I can go in there and say shhh...sleep time, we don't get up until the light comes on...and lie on the floor. Then, when the light comes on and he's still up (because he definitely will be) we can get up for the day.

Seems to me that right now - it's hard for him to understand the difference between waking up at 5:30 when it's dark and having me say sleep time and whining and crying until 6:30 when it's still dark and then I let him out of the crib. It's like by doing that - with no change that he can understand - he's learned that if he complains for an hour he can get out!

What do you think? Do you think a 23 month old can learn that? Seems pretty straightforward to me - and he's able to understand not now, first we have to do this then we can do this...kind of concepts.

K

[Meredith123]

Kate, we are having the exact same problem right now. Pretty much the same schedule too, except that my LO sleeps for 2 hours at daycare, but only 1.5 hours at home on the weekends.

Last night my ds put on quite a show with a 45 minute tantrum when we tried to put him to bed. This has never happened before, and as you know, I have been lying in his room with him to fall asleep. Even that wasn't good enough last night. After about 30 minutes of him crying with me in the room I ended up leaving the room for 30 seconds, then going back in, lying him down, and laying down on the floor myself. If he stood up and started to cry again I left for another 30 seconds. It took about 5 times of me leaving and then he decided to stay lying down, with me on the floor, and then he went to sleep.

When he woke up at 5:15 this morning I did the same thing. I was able to keep him in bed until 6:00, but a lot of that time was spent crying or whimpering (but mostly lying down).

I know this isn't a solution, but at least it extended my LO's in-bed time a little bit this morning. And he still wakes up early on the days that he has only had a 1.5 hour nap, so I don't know how I could change that. And daylight savings time has me very scared right now!

I will be anxious to see what other brilliant ideas others have!

[MDHmommy]

Meredith - I wonder if he woke early b/c of the late bed time last night? It's never ending...

[Meredith123]

That could be...I have a friend who has a 4 year old. She said that the same thing happened with her  around age 2 - all of a sudden waking up at 5:30 every morning. I asked her what they did about it and she said, "We got up and drank lots of coffee."    But she said that it does end eventually! 

[Windsurfer's mum]

Hello

I too have a 2 year old who was the best sleeper but now he seems to fight it every which way. I try not to let him have too much day sleep and I stick too his bed routine. We have good nights and bad. Wish I could offer the magic solution but at least we know we our not alone! One day he will be 14 and I will not be able to get him up!!!!

Clare
 

[Layla]

Kate... the av is around 13 but around this age Isabella was too waking up at 5.30am (& HAPPY!!!) so I figured something had to be done. If he's waking miserable then it sounds like OT or could be teething???

Because Isabella is more sensitive to the A time before bed rather than in the morning, her nap was pushed slightly more towards 12ish pm (whereas before it was around 11.30am) & it sort of cut to 1.5hrs on its own. She's always done the cutting nap business on her own btw. Her nights also went down to about 10.5ish hours so we ended up with about 12hrs of sleep overall with an occasional 12.5-13hrs here & there until it was dead set to 12hrs.

And I agree with Stacy that when Isabella used to get overtired..... I would offer earlier nap & earlier bedtime for a few days & then go back to our previous routine.

Lastly..... we don't really have a support system for early risers so this might be it!

[laurencopenhaver]

Hi ladies, my Kyler is 16 months and a mess.  We're still not totally to one nap.  For months we've been struggling.  Right now wakeup is usually 6 (would like it to be 7), if taking one nap it's around 11 for 1 hour and 15 min exactly.  then bedtime is about 6:15.  If he takes 2 naps, which seems to make things worse, bedtime is 7:30 or so and has seemed to make worse of a night and earlier waking.  I tried for over a week to get 2 naps and push wakeup back b/c of later bedtime, but that just made things worse.  Waking at 4:45-5 and not going back to sleep.  Then when this happens he's back asleep by 8:30 and so on.  And to make matters worse the time is changing sat. so when he wakes at 6 he'll really be waking at 5.  I just pulled to early morning sippy (4:45-5:30) about 2 weeks ago and for the first time ever, if he has a good day will sleep from 6:30-6 am.  And is finally not waking for the sippy and expecting it.  I was told once the time changes to just make him stay in bed at the new 5 am and not get him up till 6 or whenever I want wakeup. Well that's 7 am.  I can't do that for 2 hours.  What should we do.  First problem is too early of a wakeup to get to 11-11:30 nap.  If I'm too late on nap he'll only sleep for 30 min.  I've tried pushing that back.  But things are just going to get ten times worse here in two days.  Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated, I am so stressed out and can't see any light at the end of the tunnell.

Lauren

[laurencopenhaver]

Most of the time he'll refuse am nap.  Laughs at me.  He's getting a total of over 13 hrs in 24 hours.  Even when his nights are shorter the one nap isn't more than hr:15.  When I do give him the morning nap are the days when he wakes at 5-5:30 and doesn't go back to sleep. Then 9 times out of 10 I can also get a good hr:plus 2nd nap as well.  But on days where he wakes at 6 or later he refuses am.  On those days we just do some sort of down/quiet time during the normal nap time.  Then try to get to 11 for nap;  but would love to be sleeping at 10:30  but that means wakeup at 11:45.

[MDHmommy]

I've noticed good sleep has less to do with total numbers of hours during the day but SPACING it out correctly like Stacy is talking about.

That said...this weekend starts our trying an earlier nap to combat the super early wake ups...

I also gave him his paci for at daycare because I think that will help them get him down earlier for nap. Past few days he's been waking at 5:30 but then not doing a nap until 1:00 that's WAY too long A time. Paci should help him wind down faster and conk out faster.

Last night he woke up at 2am and was WIDE awake until 4:15. But...he slept until 7:30. Go figure 

Good luck everyone with the time change!

[MDHmommy]

Hey - thanks for making this a sticky!

Marshall slept great last night, in spite of a late nap (1-3pm) he went to bed on time STN and woke at 5:50....

I did give him some tylenol before bed.

It's noon right now and he has just fallen asleep - I'm taking Stacy's advice re: an earlier nap - we'll see how it goes. At about 11:00 he was yawning while we were in the car, so I'm hopeful that he'll take a good nap and we can get him back on track. I'm planning to put him to bed at normal time tonight, 7:30.

How's everyone handling daylight savings tomorrow?

Kate

[rinajack]

Hey all.  Got myself a chronic early riser here, has been that way pretty much since birth,  Ther have been times when she slept in til 6/6:30 for a couple weeks, in hind sight - they were all growth spurts.

She was doing great (for her, she is also a chronic NWer, mostly just likes to know we are still around, but sometimes has night mares, wakes when teething or ill, and sometimes can't find dummy or lovie as it is lost in the covers). Anyway, these wakeups, unless ill or teething, are generally no more than a minute or two.

Anyway, she was doing (for several months!)

5:30 wake,
12ish nap for 1.5-1.75 hours,
Bed at 6:30 asleep by 7.

We don't wake from naps, she chose that length and if she sleeps longer we let her - makes no difference to nights or fighting sleep so far as I can tell.

She started fighting nap and bedtime, moved nap out to 12:30, bed to 7, everything was perfect, even sleeping through sometimes.

Then got sick repeatedly, so was pretty much sick all the tiem for a month.  Her naps were longer, her nights were crap (ear infections and stuff ).

Then back to normal for a couple of days (including sleeping through), now waking before 5 and fighting naps and bedtime by playing (really hyper).  Not her normal self and instinct tells me this time is OT.  Anything after 5 is OK with us, we are early risers.  Two issues here: she is teething....and we havn't yet given paracetemol/ibuprofen at bedtime, will tonight.  And she often waking soon after hughs early feed.  There is no way he is waking her.  They are sharing a room, but she can sleep through him going to bed, and I get to him before he cries, then take him back to my room for the feed and keep him there til morning.  However, even when Hugh was in utero, they would time it so he was awake and kicking when she slept, and vice versa....they just know LOL.

Today (using paracetmol) we managed to get Zara to take two naps, 2.25 hrs in the AM and 1.5 in the PM. 

Will try to put her to bed at nromal time (using pain relief).  Hoping for a post 5am wakeup tomorrow.

No point training to sleep later, when I return to work she will have to be up at 5:30 to get ready to go to daycare.

[MDHmommy]

It's gotta be teeth screwing Marshall up.

He went to bed about 15 mins earlier last night but woke at 11 and needed to be settled and then woke at 5:15!!! DH had to lie on his floor with him to get him to settle down and stayed with him till 6.

I don't think that the earlier nap helped anything....sigh...

[rinajack]

These last lot of molars are a killer!  Zara won't keep her hands away from her mouth, she shoves her fingers right right up the back and chews and chews and chews.  Everything she touches gets put in her mouth.  She has teething gels, paracetemol, ibuprofen - those do improve her mood slightly, but nothing stops her from feeling those teeth.

So, this morning I woke to feed hugh at 4:10, Zara up at 4:30 - DH often has to tend to the early wakeups due to me being in the middle of feeds...gave her paracetemol, and she stayed and played in her bed quite happily til just after 5.  At which time I still hadn't managed to settle hugh back to sleep.  So by the time he went back to sleep (wanted his own bed apparently ) she was already up for the day watching a "movie" - BE.  I guess one thing that isn't too bad with her early rising is that I have tought her (over several months LOL) that we do quiet time when we wake up til breakfast at 6:30am.

Luckily (suspecting this early rise) DH and I went to bed before 9pm - we might have to make a habit of it LOL

[MDHmommy]

What a crap night we had! Bed at 8 (late for us) woke at 10 then needed me to stay on his floor from 11-12! ugh...spit out the tylenol I tried to give him...lovely...and woke at 5 (really 6) so I stayed on his floor till 6 and then up for the day.

He asked for his nap early too - and was totally shattered by 6:30 tonight. Bed was at 7. We'll see how he does. I did put that alarm clock in his room so that the light will come on at 6:30 and I can start to teach him that he has to stay in bed until the light comes on. I also closed both blinds in his room, I had them open before because I thought he was scared of the dark...but now I'm thinking that the exterior lights are waking him. Who knows...!

Rina - I fell asleep on the couch last night at 8:45! Lol!